Inman

Opendoor starts publicly trading on Dec. 21

Daniel Fishel (illustration) and Scott Chernis (photo) for Inman

Opendoor is expected to make its public debut on December 21, after a shareholder vote and official merger with special purpose acquisition company Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II.

The company will trade on NASDAQ — which has a multitude of initial listing requirements — under the ticker symbol “OPEN,” starting on December 21.

Prior to the official merger, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II will continue to publicly trade under the listing IPOB — where its stock price has more than doubled to slightly more than $24 per share, ahead of the merger.

Opendoor is one of the latest firms to use a SPAC as a vehicle to raise capital and become a publicly listed company, rather than going the direct route. Other industry veterans like former Zillow CEO and co-founder Spencer Rascoff have also launched their own SPACs. 

Social Capital II’s CEO, Chamath Palihapitiya, is also the chairman of Virgin Galactic, another company Social Capital took public, through what he calls the “IPO 2.0 platform.”

Prior to the company’s public listing, investors were provided insight into Opendoor’s business for the first time, via the company’s S-4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, back in October.

The filing revealed that Opendoor posted $1.9 billion in revenue in the first six months of 2020. It’s a slight decline from the $2.2 billion the company posted in 2019, although it’s likely due to the headwinds of COVID-19, which forced the company to suspend its homebuying operation for a brief period.

The company posted a net loss of $118 million in the first six months of 2020, compared to a net loss of $157 million in the first six months of 2019. For the entire year of 2019, Opendoor sold nearly 19,000 homes and generated $4.7 billion in revenue.

Opendoor also revealed in the filing that, in 2019, the company received a civil investigative demand from the FTC “seeking documents and information relating primarily to statements in our advertising and website comparing Opendoor’s offers to purchase homes to selling in a traditional manner using an agent and statements pertaining to Opendoor’s offers reflecting or being based on market prices.”

Email Patrick Kearns